The Afghan Whigs performing "66" on Conan O'Brien's show back in 1999. Dulli breaks a string!

I dressed up as the Wal-Mart Santa this past weekend and scared the fuck out of some kids. Dr. Pepper/7-Up bought the rights to Santa (in Wal-Mart), so on either side of the bench I sit on is a stack of about 50-70 two-liters of 7-Up. In addition to mini candy canes, I also gave the kids cans of soda. It was all really fucked.

Of course, this happened, too.

Look at how shitty I look as Santa and then think about the fact that the person who was dressing up as Santa before me is female, stands (literally) around four feet tall, has the mental development of an 8-10 year old child, and kept pulling off her beard to take drinks of water, which would have been fine, except she "was too hot" and "about to pass out" with the beard on, so she just left it hanging from her one ear, including during pictures with the kids.

She also decided it was necessary to wear no pants underneath the Santa pants that are designed to go over the pants you're already wearing. Then she informed me that she "got really sweaty" in the suit. I realize that this has an effect on nobody except me, but come on. Goddamn.

Her intentions were top notch, but none of her physical or mental attributes really helped in the way of keeping the spirit of Christmas. You'd think that with all the fat dudes we have working and frequenting our store that we'd be able to rope someone into doing it, but that was apparently impossible. They all claimed to be bad with kids.

How to Be Santa

1) Don't molest the kid. This is a good rule even when not dressed up as Santa.

2) Ask the kid if they've been good this year and believe whatever they say because who gives a shit.

3) If the kid has a brother or sister with them, ask them who's been the baddest. If they don't have a brother or sister with them, ask their parents. If the mom is kind of hot and the dad isn't around, ask if she's been naughty, because Santa does that on stupid sitcoms and everyone's seen Bad Santa and she'll think it's funny. See if you can ask for a "snowjob" without the kid hearing.

4) Ask the kid what they want for Christmas and tell them you'll get it for them for sure. You are not their parents and this is not your responsibility.

4b) If someone asks for a kidney for medical purposes, just be really nice and tell them you'll try. If they ask for a kidney for weirdo shit, just tell them to fuck off.

5) Ask the kid if they like to play in the snow. Some kids will be a bit gunshy, but, ultimately, kids are fucking dumb, so you can really ask them anything and they'll just answer with whatever the fuck they feel like. Ask them about quantum physics or something. I bet they'll answer with a story about a time they saw a really big dog.

All in all, I'm a really awesome Santa. And you can too.

Tis the season to suck it.

Right as I was complaining that I haven't had any work accepted in a long-ass time, I look like a dickhead by getting three acceptances in about a week.

My story "Reruns" (the second story in my cycle/chapbook Murmuration) went up at Monkeybicycle. This is a big deal because Monkeybicycle is excellent, and them having faith in my story kind of gives me a little faith in my story. This one is secretly dedicated to my friend Jon Eagle, who loves television shows more than anyone I've ever met.

The other stories that got accepted aren't up yet. One of them is "Pyramid Scheme" (the fourth story in Murmuration). I'm stoked about this going up (at Bartleby Snopes!) for the same reason as "Reruns." That one's about a band called the Honeybreakers, reprising the role they played in my story "Sometimes We Were Young." (My friend Sam Snoek-Brown and I do this stupid thing where every story we write is connected to at least one other story we've written. It's pointless and nobody wins, but if they did, I'd be winning.) I'm working with the crew on some edits right now and even the butting-heads that we're doing on a couple spots have gone way too smoothly. The changes they suggested that I ended up taking helped the story immensely, and, as I had thought, the parts I've always been uneasy with have disappeared.

That leaves only one story for the collection unpublished, the stripper story "Cool Tits, Moxie." I've got that out at a few places now, and if none of them pick it up, I'm fine with it going unpublished. Leaves a bit of incentive for buying the book, I guess. I'll probably end up putting it out myself because I'm too lazy to send it off to publishers, but that's fine.

The other story is called "Trace," going up at 10,000 Tons of Black Ink. I've talked about that stupid asshole story on here before as being a revising nightmare. I actually even revised it after sending it off, because that's what nightmares are for. I'm wondering if I can actually broach the subject of having 10KTOBI publish the revised version without pissing them off. I'm totally going to try.

I've also gotta remember to make a stupid 10,000 Maniacs joke in my next e-mail to them.

I added some friends to the (Has Friends) page. Justin Lawrence Daugherty is a fucking incredible writer who I can guarantee you will hear more from/about very soon. He takes myths and turns them into realistic stories of the absurd. Matthew Burnside is another wizard working with myth and sorrow, one who I didn't even realize until today that I've known for years and years from a guitar forum we both frequent. (Or used to frequent, in my case, as I was perma-banned years ago for several different things, one of which included posting under the name CC DeVilled Eggs and ruining every thread with pictures of Poison's CC DeVille.) Mary Miller wrote two of my favorite books in recent memory, the full-length Big World and the chapbook Less Shiny and I'm kind of in love with her. Check these wonderful people out.

While you're checking things out, go to the website for the micro-press I've started for Passenger Side Books and consider sending me a manuscript. I've got some good work so far and look forward to reading more of it. Let's make books, people.

My (Is Published) page and my (Has Friends) page have both been retooled to be more readable. So read them.

Also, I appeared on a podcast being hosted by my tight bros in the band Victory & Associates. It's called You Can't Stop the Signaland is a must-listen for anyone who's into podcasts or has been in a band or likes talking about ASCII-styled dicks or thinks I'd be a good guy to talk to on the phone for a half hour. They play a bunch of killer angular indie rock and roll, too, so do everyone a favor and listen.

"No One Gives a Hoot About Faux-Ass Nonsense" by Don Caballero, from their second, aptly-titled, album, Dob Caballero 2.

It's been a month. Here's the loose ends of what happened:

1) I went through a long streak of not writing any fiction, making me go insane and start crying while watching Wrestlemania 21, specifically the part where Hulk Hogan comes out and flexes in front of a giant, electronic American flag.

2) I started trying to watch real films so I have something to offer in conversations aside from Nicolas Cage movies. I'm starting with the works of David Lynch. Blue Velvet was good once it got into the story. Eraserhead was up its own ass. I'm watching Wild At Heart next, starring, oddly enough, Nicolas Cage. Life is a circle/highway.

3) I posted on the Facebook page for the German thrash metal band Kreator, asking if I could join their band. So far, no response.

4) I had the official book party for Shake Away These Constant Days. It went well. In the words of my friend Bob, "It wasn't runnin' a train, but it wasn't a trainwreck."

5) I bought a package of pizza flavored hotdogs, which was the second grossest food-related decision I made all month, right behind eating a pancake that I found.

I had the first installment in Love Dumb, my all-too-thorough chronological journey through the complete song library of KISS, go up a bit ago. There was a slight hiccup in the posting schedule, but from now on, every Thursday there will be a new column. Check out the first one:

I also had a review of Gregory Sherl's debut full-length collection, Heavy Petting, go up at [PANK]. I was mixed on it, for sure, but the gist of it is that the good stuff was brilliant and the bad stuff was bullshit. There's plenty of both, but as far as first collections go--especially such long ones, it seems--Heavy Petting is as intriguing as it gets.

After I stopped crying and started writing fiction again, I turned out a short story without a title (I'm soft-positive on "Old Winners") that leans pretty heavily on Barry Hannah, specifically his story "Water Liars." He's got an old guy going to the docks to visit other old men who lie about shit in a jovial way. I've got a young guy who goes to an arcade to visit old men who tell him how to win in a competitive-yet-empty way. There are buried problems with women leaking out of everything in both. I'm hoping that using "Water Liars" as a jumping off point--Amy Hempel calls it "response writing"--won't be obvious. But, if I'm going to rip something off, I want to rip something off that rules.

I'm finding that I like style more than I like substance, which isn't to say that I like no substance, I just like style more. There's Van Halen and there's Elvis Costello. Neither one is without traces of what makes the other untouchable, but they are genius opposites.

I haven't submitted this story anywhere yet, but I'm back on the submission train, so I'll be sending it out shortly. I've got every eligible story in my chapbook, Murmuration, out at several places each right now, just sort of waiting on replies. Of the longer pieces I worked in as a second section for the Caketrain contest, only one, the aforementioned story about a millionaire and time zones and girlfriends and ex-girlfriends and a mute Italian girl called "Run the Daylight Down," isn't out anywhere yet. Once I get done watching The League DVDs a co-worker loaned me and insisted I watch, I'll send them out.

It is pretty fucking funny, though.

I started up the micro-press that I've been threatening my life with for the past year or so. This essentially just means that I ordered a printer and a long-arm stapler and have begun the long process of trying to figure out how to use a bootlegged copy of Adobe InDesign, but those are all big, necessary steps.

I'm planning on doing 20-40 page chapbooks of fiction and non-fiction. Magic Helicopter Press and Future Tense Books are both great examples of micro-presses putting out killer chapbooks. I've read their work and am learning from it, and I hope to put out a quality piece of work sometime early next year.

I've accepted the first manuscript to be released, but what little details I have aren't worth spilling right now. I will say that, in , and a human goddamn being.